Act of Will by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

the top of Audra’s head lovingly, and reiterated this promise. Then her brothers stepped away from her, picked up their suitcases and left the house without uttering another word.
    Audra snatched her coat from the hall cupboard and ran out. She flew down the drive, calling their names, needing to prolong these last few minutes with them. They stopped, turned, waited for her, and the three of them linked arms and walked on in silence, too heartbroken to speak. When they arrived at the gates the two boys silently kissed Audra for the last time, and tore themselves from her clinging arms before they lost control completely.
    Holding one hand to her trembling mouth, stifling her sobs, Audra watched them stride courageously along the main road to Ripon until they were just small specks in the distance. She wanted to run after them, to shout, ‘
Wait for me! Don’t leave me behind! Take me with you!
’ But Audra knew this would be useless. They could not take her with them. It was not her brothers’ fault they were being separated from each other. Alicia Drummond was to blame. She wanted to rid herself of Edith Kenton’s children and she did not care how she did it.
    Only when her brothers had finally disappeared from sight did Audra drag her gaze away from the empty road at last. She turned back into the driveway and wondered, with a sinking heart and a sickening feeling of despair, if she would ever see her brothers again. Australia was atthe other end of the world, as far away as any place could possibly be. They had promised faithfully to send for her, but how long would it take them to save up the money for her passage? A whole year, perhaps.
    As this dismaying thought wedged itself into Audra’s mind she looked up at that bleak, grim house and shivered involuntarily. And at that precise moment her dislike for her mother’s cousin hardened into a terrible and bitter hatred that would remain with her for the rest of her life. Audra Kenton would not ever find it in her heart to forgive Alicia Drummond for her cold and deliberate cruelty to them. And the memory of the day her brothers had been sent away would stay with Audra always.
    The following afternoon, white-faced and trembling, and fretting for her brothers, Audra had gone to live and work at the Fever Hospital. Since there were no vacancies that year for student nurses she had been taken on as a ward maid.
    Audra Kenton’s life of drudgery had begun. She was still only fourteen years old.
    She had been awakened at dawn the next morning. After a breakfast of porridge, dripping and bread, and tea, eaten with the other little ward maids, the daily routine had commenced. Audra was appalled at the hardship of it, and she, who had never done a domestic chore in her entire life, had found that first day unspeakable. Balking at the tasks assigned to her, she had asked herself despairingly how she would manage. Yet she had not dared complain to her superiors. Being intelligent, and alert, she had understood within the space of a few hours that they were not interested in the likes of her. She was inconsequential in the hierarchy of the hospital, where everyone—doctors and nurses alike—worked extremely hard, and with conscientiousness.
    On her second morning she had gritted her teeth and attacked her chores with renewed vigour, and she had learned the best way she could, mainly by observing the other maids at work. At the end of the first month she was as efficient as any of them, and had become expert at scrubbing floors, scouring bathtubs, washing and ironing sheets, making beds, emptying bed pans, cleaning lavatories, disinfecting the surgical ward and sterilizing instruments.
    Every night she had fallen into her hard little cot in the maids’ dormitory, so bone tired that she had not noticed her surroundings or the uncomfortable bed. She was usually so exhausted in these first weeks she did not even have the strength to weep. And when she did cry into her pillow